Itchy

Ella:  Mama, I am so itchy.  But I am not itchy because I have fleas.  I am itchy because I am bored.

Two-isms

I was (sort of) ready for Dash to develop a fierce independent streak around his second birthday, which he has and then some, but I was not prepared for two to also bring the incessant asking of "Why?" or by the constant poop jokes.   Isn't the why phase for the 3s and the poop phase for the 4s?  Isn't it kinder that way on the parents?

Oh, the guilt

I was catching up on some work last night in my office after dinner while Josh and the kids were playing, happily - or so I thought - before bath time.  When I came out of my office, I found the following notes on the floor outside the door:

The first one says "There is a message on the floor" and the second one says "I feel lonely without you".  Ouch.  I like to think that I do a decent, heck maybe even good, job of balancing time spent doing work with time spent playing with my children, but Ella seems to want a lot of my time lately, and doesn't have much sympathy for me when I am feeling stressed about needing to get work done.  In my mind, working half-time means that I have the best of both worlds - I have a job and career that I enjoy and I also have time to go to on playdates and walk to the park and bake cookies in the afternoons with Ella and Dash.  But maybe, by working at home and keeping a pretty flexible schedule (which translates to often running up to my office to get a few things done in the mornings or evenings), I am not balancing things as well as I think.  Which article is speaking to me?  What Not to Say to a Working Mom or What Not to Say to a Stay-at-home Mom?  Unfortunately for me, I find that aspects of both speak deeply to me.  I wear yoga pants constantly AND apparently, my four-year old feels lonely without me.  This mothering thing is not for the faint of heart.